Old repository can't be read: svn: E125012: Invalid character in hex checksum

[Matthew Exon]

My repository has been going for about 10 years now (I have no idea which version I was using when it started). Until now it's lived on a Lucid VPS. Now I've moved it to a Xenial machine, and it doesn't work any more:

mat@winter:~$ svn co svn+ssh://rei.exon.name/home/mat/system/repository
<email address hidden>'s password:
svn: E125012: Invalid character in hex checksum

mat@rei:~/system/repository$ svnadmin verify .
* Error verifying revision 0.
svnadmin: E200004: Could not convert '/

mat@rei:~$ svn --version
svn, version 1.9.3 (r1718519)
   compiled Mar 14 2016, 07:39:01 on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

If I rsync it over to various other machines it works fine: Lucid svn v1.6.6, Macports svn v1.9.4, Raspbian svn v1.8.10. But two different Xenial machines with svn v1.9.3 both fail.

Subversion release notes insist that there is no need to dump and reload the repository. And the fact that at least one later version still works suggests this is a regression in Ubuntu rather than some backwards compatibility that got broken.

[Marius Gedminas (mgedmin)]

See https://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2016-06/0096.shtml (and the thread containing that message): it appears to be a bug in Subversion 1.9 that's already fixed upstream.

If my understanding is correct, this bug can cause data corruption. It would be good if someone could prepare a SRU.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Marius Gedminas (mgedmin)]

AFAICT the upstream fix will appear in Subversion 1.9.5.

[Matthew Exon (ubuntubugs-mexon)]

FWIW, I solved the problem by simply (!) rebuilding my repository with dump/restore. Of course this is my own repository and I can do what I like to it, that's not a general solution.